Crossing the border with Blue Jays beat reporter Jordan Bastian.

You can't faze Doc

CLEVELAND — Those clubbies sure do have a sense of humor. When newly acquired Blue Jay Kevin Mech arrived at Progressive Field today, he found his locker inside the clubhouse was situated directed next to one Roy Halladay.

It was Mench who drilled a line drive back up the middle on July 9, 2005, breaking Halladay’s leg and ending the ace’s season. Halladay might’ve been on his way to a second American League Cy Young Award that year.

It was obviously an attempt by the Indians to try to get into Halladay’s head.

So, Mench and Brad Wilkerson — both picked up by the Jays today, in case you hadn’t heard by now — were both on hand and in the lineup today. Mench can play outfield, spend time at DH and maybe man some first. Wilkerson can play outfield and first, as well.

This begs the question, though, who’s the odd man out when David Eckstein and John McDonald come off the disabled list? Jorge Valendia is probably headed back to Triple-A when one returns, but another spot will have to be cleared. I guess that makes this a two-week evaluation period of sorts.

Would the Jays dare rid of Shannon Stewart after giving him the job over Reed Johnson at the end of spring? Would Toronto move either Eckstein or McDonald and risk thinning out the infield depth? Or, will it be one of Mench or Wilkerson to go when that time comes? It’s certainly a topic of debate for now.

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34 Comments

Why are the Jays picking up OF? I know that the Jays have been after Mench for years. I have never understood why. His stats are very average.
Have the Jays given up on Lind? What about Snider?
This must be part of a bigger plan. Maybe Overbay is on his way out of town?
It looks like Stewart’s days in a Jays uniform are numbered. This moves him down to 6 on the OF depth chart.

I say it’s a trial period for Mench and Wilkerson to see who plays best to platoon with Stewart. My money is on Mench.
Unless lind starts tearing it up again in AAA I say his days in a Jays uniform are numbered. This year they will obviously try and fill the LF void with the options in place now, as for 09 who knows… Hopefully Snider is ready! He is the long term solution.

Halladay always looks good. It is the Jays bats that are the biggest problem. The starters must feel they have to pitch a shutout to win. Alot of pressure on the Jays pitching staff.

I think the Tribe will be very tough this year. There starting pitching is very good. No Westbrook, he’ll be back though.
Jays got lucky, no Cliff Lee this weekend. He has been the best in the A.L. this year.

J.P. needs to focus and gets Gibbons a bat or two. Perhaps Mench and Wilkerson will help. Sometimes a change of scenery does wonders for players.

It doesn’t matter who the hitting coach is. Brantley or Jordan, lol. Overbay is a guy that needs to get his bat clicking, look like the Overbay of the past. In 2006 he was excellent. His wrist injury must have really messed him up.

Look at Boston. Dave Madagan was the hitting coach in San Diego and they couldn’t hit. In Boston, Magadan looks very smart. Anyone with a half of a brain could look good as the hitting coach in Boston.

The pitchen tonight was garbage from the starter to the bullpen Doc put the runners on base and it cost him 4 runs the bullpen was just as bad and we have the worst offence in the majors.We will finish in last place this year the only good thing is the Jays may clean house.

I agree, unfortunately that we will finish in last place this year. A major shake up need to happend to get this ship right. The pitching for the most part has been outstanding, but with little to no offence to speak of, how long can the pitching keep it up.
It is not the hitting coaches fault, we switched coaches and same result. JP and Gibby must go….. ‘
Realy can’t beleive how this season has gone. We need someone to come in and light a fire under them.

you guys are foolish. Last place? I’m pretty sure with the 12 pitchers we have, we will win more than we lose, regardless of whos hitting. Does anyone really believe Baltimore and Tampa Bay (and frankly New York), all three of whom have horrendous pitching, can all finish ahead of us?

Horrible Move by the jays, NOW I DO BELIEVE THAT WE JUST NEED TO TURN THIS LINEUP AROUND, IF NEEDED TRADE HALF THE PLAYERS AND A FEW PITCHERS FOR GOOD HITTERS….

WE NEED SNIDER…OUR FUTURE…
DOC’S GONNA BE PISSED and like someone said I wouldn’t be surprised if he asks to be traded if this continues…but then again he did take a salary cut a few years ago to stay in the jays uniform…

Whats’s wikerson and mench gonna do? They are worse than what we have…

Our problem isn’t hitting, its hitting with runners in scoring position

Now that wells is gone, I FINALLY THINK THAT BONDS IS THE WAY TO GO…SEE WE SHOULDN’T HAVE GOTTTEN RID OF THOMAS…EVERYHTING HAS GONE DOWNHILL FROM THEN ON…MAYBE A TRADE SO WE HAD SOMETHING IN RETURN WOULD HAVE BEEN MUCH BETTER…ANOTHER BONEHEADED MOVE BY JP

I am seriously thinking about stopping to watch all the Jays games…is there any point left…just watch the highlights the next day to see another Loss for the Jays and another great starting effort go down the drain….

We NEED a hitter like, UTLEY, HAN RAM OR HOLLIDAY OR SOMEONE WHO CAN HITT.

Wells is gone…another waste of money, overbay is not gonna be the same again…another waste of money, Thomas released…another waste of money, singing Bonds…once again a waste of money (unless he produces),

I say GIVE LInd one more chance and bring out all our young ppl maybe they have better luck, can’t believe i am going to do this but if they don’t start winning in the next 10 games then our season is gone for good, injuries once again start mounting up…

The problem with the Jays is they go into Cleveland where they have lost more than they have won with the mindset oh we can’t win here and last night we face a pitcher that was 1 and 5 and they let him walk all over them who is the person or persons responsible for this kind of thinking find them and get rid of them.

As far as Wells goes a 7 yeas 126 mil. contrac was way to much a 4 year 48 mil. deal is all he should have been offerd and if he said no to bad this team did the same thing with Delgado and where did that get us not to the playoffs thats for sure.

Im with Harry start playing better than 500 or I will find another pastime.

Not that it cost them the game last night but I think it’s time that Accardo be relegated to the back of the bullpen. Give Frasor higher leverage innings.
I continue to believe that Barry can help the Jays immensly. Why give up our most valuable assets (pitching) for offense when arguably the greatest hitter of all time can be had for nothing but money.

Enigma.
Where will they get the money for Bonds JP spent it all on big contracts and garbage players and one bat wont do the job the last two players he picked up are a waste of skin that nobody wanted anymore.

bosox.
You guys lost a good one when they traded Hanley Ramirez,I wish we had two or three players like him.

The only players that we have that are any good not counting pitchers are Rios-Wells-Rolen-Mac-Hill-maybe overbay-we don’t have a good catcher or Left Fielder or a good DH, Or manager or GM,pretty sad case what do you think.

Wow are you guys negative! In one way I understand.. but holy crap it’s just a game.There are a lot of teams sucking at the plate this season without the benefit of first class pitching like the Jays.Gibbons isn’t doing as bad a job as you guys let on.He can’t bat for them.I’ve seen him do more managing this year because of scuffling offence.Heck if this club was 27-10 and running away with the division some of you would want Gibby’s head.The manager can’t swing the bats and throw the ball guys…..Just ask Jim Leyland.

Garry
In my view Halliday should have never been sent back out in the 7th inning. He had already thrown 101 pitches against a very difficult lineup. In my view if we keep pressing him like this, he will either go through a dead arm period for 6-8 games or risk injury. Halliday has already pitched 63 innings or about 8 innings per outing. If he continues on this pace, he will total about 260 innings, BEFORE we get to the playoffs. If anyone thinks that is going to happen without injury or assume he’ll have anything left for the playoffs if we get there, they’re dilusional. Mark my words on this post.

I will reserve judgement on signing Mench and Wilkerson until the next shoe drops. The fact is our problem is not hitting LH pitching, it’s hitting with RISP-neither of these two guys will solve that problem. All 3 of these guys ( including Stewart) hit well against LH pitching, BUT they’re all either below or around the Mendosa line against RH’s. My preference of the 3 is Mench. Stewart ( against Tampa Bay) looks like he’s done, particulary against rh pitching. In the last game against TB, he was serioulsy overmatched against a rh throwing only 92 mph.
I think Mench is an upgrade both offensively and defensively to Stewart and if they dump Stewart and recall Lind (who has always hit rh pitching well, except the last 6 games) then we’ll have a really good platoon situation in LF.
But none of this solves the real problem, which is hitting with RISP. This team is about to set a new low level standard for that stat and no one player or two player change is going to solve it. I think everyone of these guys are pressing. Abner needs to call a club house meeting or two and take the pressure off, and remind everyone HR’s are not needed, what’s needed are opposite field singles to move the runners along. It seems to me every one is going up there trying to yank it over the fence or accomplish too much. As a result pitchers are playing them on the outer part of the plate, no one is hitting to the opposite field but instead are hitting these soft dp ground balls or swinging so damn hard trying to hit a hr, they strike out.

tkpage.
Maybe the manager can’t swing the bat but he should be able to motivate this team just look at him when he walks out to the mound he’s like an old man maybe it’s because he can’t make a move without JPs permission I don’t know what it is but he has had a good team for the last three years and has went nowhere,Also would you like to see Cito back.

You are right…we are being a bit negative , for a team spending 95 million+ the amount of hitting getting from that money is ridicously low.

The only good bats that I consider on the Jays are:
Wells (gone for sometime atleast)
Rios (Slumpint a bit)
Hill (Too Streaky of a hitter)
Rolen (Injury Prone)

and as you see each one has a problem…

And as I mentioned before hitting isn’t the problem its hitting with runners in scoring position,
The team isn’t the problem its the management…
Signing Wilkerson and Mench isnot going to solve our problems and giving up gustavo chacin and sergio santos (not that useful but still) doesn’t help either

We need to have a whole new turnover of the Lineup, they can no longer put up numbers they did in the 2006 season…
We need to do with the lineup the same thing we did with the rotation, keep a couple of players and bring everyone else in and get rid of present players…

And man Frank Cattalanato when he was here, he was great at hitting to the opposite sides of the feild and really helped the offense in small ways…

I swear, the next time JP or Gibbons make a preseason comment like “Well, so long as we stay healthy, we’ll have a shot at the division” I’m going to throw my shoe at the television. So that’s 6 regulars (including Jmac, who should be a regular) on the 15 day. Nice Jinx folks! Someone needs to remind the reporters in about a month when these guys start trickling back into the lineup to “Give the lineup/bullpen a shot in the arm” that the team was losing *before* this happened. (Janssen excluded from this argument of course). I feel like I’m about to see the baseball equivalent of “The Replacements” without the warm fuzzy ending or the hot cheerleaders. All I wanted to see was about 2 games when I get back to T.O. this summer, now I’m not so sure.

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